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In a hive of cubicles at the Dialog Direct offices in Highland Park, Mich., Keontay Kelley and other employees answer calls through headsets.

While they work, LED signs on the walls flash reminders: “Manners Matter,” “Phone Etiquette,” “Yes Ma’am/​Sir,” “Thank You” and “I Apologize.” The room buzzes with conversation, the sound of hundreds of people earning paychecks.

After years of sending call center jobs to India, the Philippines, Mexico and other countries, companies are bringing them back to the U.S. An estimated 5 million Americans are employed in call centers.

Dialog Direct, which employs about 800 people in its headquarters, announced recently it is planning to add 500 more — 300 in Highland Park and 200 in its Grand Rapids offices. Another call-center company, S&P Data, said it plans to add 420 employees at its offices.

Mr. Kelley, a Ferris State graduate, has worked at Dialog Direct for less than a year.

He said he enjoys working there. Some calls can be frustrating. But, he said, the job lets him work inside an office, wear professional attire — and best of all, the work lets him feel like he’s helping solve people’s problems, he said.

“I like to be the knight in shining armor,” he said.

In his experience, Mr. Kelley said, callers appreciate that the center is in the U.S.

Doug Kearney, Dialog Direct’s president and CEO, said, “A lot of jobs are coming back to the U.S.” In the next few years, he said, he expects more growth in the industry as customers increasingly turn to social media.

Companies began sending call center jobs overseas years ago because they sought to reduce labor costs, said Matt Zemon, chairman of the nonprofit group Jobs4America based in Chapel Hill, N.C.

But in recent years, as overseas labor costs have increased, companies have been reversing some of those decisions, he said. Some companies also found that customers were unhappy with the service from overseas call centers.

By Mr. Zemon’s count, about 180,000 call center jobs were created nationally in 2012 and 2013.

Paul Stockford, the director of research for the National Association of Call Centers in Hattiesburg, Miss., said the nonprofit membership group estimates there are about 66,000 call centers in the U.S., with that number expected to grow.

Companies are still using overseas centers to handle sales calls involving low-price, low-margin items and also to address calls seeking technical help. “The higher the value of the customer, the more likely the job will be in the U.S.,” he said.

If a customer is confused or dissatisfied, it could cost a company sales, and they don’t want to miss out on opportunities, especially when it comes to big-ticket items. Mr. Stockford pointed to airlines, which are selling plane tickets worth hundreds, even thousands, of dollars.

In addition, he said, though many call center jobs are entry level, they require skills — and expertise — that can lead to advancement.

Last year, General Motors started moving call center jobs from overseas to the U.S.

GM closed a call center in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and moved most of the work to a customer engagement center, where it employs about 300 contractors to address customer calls and social media posts. GM managers now oversee the workers, who are in offices closer to the engineers and top leaders, said Klaus-Peter Martin, a GM spokesman.

To deal with questions and concerns related to recalls and other issues, GM temporarily reassigned more workers to the center, he added.

A big part of the move back to domestic call centers, Mr. Martin said, was to shift efforts away from mostly documenting and escalating customer complaints to trying to resolve them quicker and on the same call, if possible.

“We want to provide the best possible service,” Mr. Martin said, pointing out that a bad experience on the phone with a GM representative could result in a lost sale for the company. “Every touch point is an opportunity.”

Earlier this year, AT&T announced it was hiring workers for call center jobs.

In late 2011, as AT&T was seeking to buy T-Mobile, the communications giant announced it planned to bring back 5,000 call center jobs that had been sent overseas. It touted the plan as the largest commitment by a company to bring jobs back to the U.S. since 2008.